Mercy Hospital Jefferson will become a regional campus for Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine (LECOM) this summer, bringing a steady stream of future physicians to the Crystal City hospital.
The agreement, a first for Mercy Jefferson in Crystal City, will make it the first regional campus for LECOM in the Midwest. The main campus is in Erie, Penn.
The Mercy Jefferson regional campus will prepare students to become physicians, pharmacists, dentists and podiatrists. Dr. Karthik Iyer, Mercy Jefferson’s chief medical officer, will serve as dean of the regional campus.
“We are going to be a teaching location,” Iyer said. “(The students) will do their first two years of classroom at the Lake Erie College campus. They then come here for their third and fourth years.”
A written statement from the college says the first 12 LECOM students are scheduled to begin their training at Mercy Jefferson on July 24. Mercy Jefferson will provide all clinical rotation training for students to become physicians, and the program can grow to accommodate up to 72 students over time, it states.
“The third-year students will train for internal medicine, family medicine, geriatrics, pediatrics, psychiatry, general surgery and obstetrics-gynecology,” Iyer said. “Mercy Jefferson can offer all the core rotations.”
Dan Eckenfels, Mercy Jefferson’s president, said Jefferson County will benefit from an influx of medical students, adding that many of them will choose to live and practice here.
“We are the only hospital in Jefferson County,” he said. “This hospital serves an area with about a quarter million people.”
Eckenfels said he expects news of the LECOM-Mercy Jefferson teaching partnership will entice already practicing physicians to come to Mercy Jefferson to help instruct new physicians.
“This has a few benefits,” he said. “It will draw more specialists to our community. It actually already has. We have specialists slated to come to Mercy Jefferson this fall.”
Iyer said the LECOM campus at Mercy Jefferson could increase the number of physicians throughout the region.
“It’s nice to bring in specialists, but our biggest needs are primary care physicians,” he said. “We need more primary care physicians. This is a need across the country, and the demand is only going to increase.”
As part of the agreement between LECOM and Mercy Jefferson, the campus will have an Early Acceptance Program, a program for high school and college students that will encourage participants to pursue medical careers. The program identifies potential medical school candidates and guides them toward earning an advanced degree.
“It gives more opportunity to get into the medical profession,” Eckenfels said. “They can get early acceptance into LECOM.”
Eckenfels said he looks forward to the opening of the LECOM regional campus at Mercy Jefferson.
“We’re excited for the opportunity for the hospital and the community,” he said. “We’re honored LECOM chose us.”
About 70 percent of LECOM graduates become primary care physicians, according to the written statement.